West Ham are battling it out with Newcastle United for Mainz striker Jonathan Burkardt, according to reports in Germany.
The rumour has come from German publication Bild, which suggests that a £50m transfer fee would not be out of the question for the Hammers.
At the risk of extinguishing everyone’s fireworks, the suggestion that such a hefty transfer fee is “not out of the question” is preposterous. While Lucas Paquetá is West Ham’s record signing at close to £50m, the club are in no position to pay out large sums of money before they know who is leaving the London Stadium.
Burkardt is in decent form and may be a player going places, but as Claret & Hugh were told today by a club source, “We’ll have to move players on before buying.”
The 24-year-old forward is attracting interest from five clubs, with West Ham facing competition from Brighton, AC Milan, and Eintracht Frankfurt. Certainly, the Seagulls’ interest—if true—contradicts their stance that they want Evan Ferguson back to build a team around him.
Hammers next opponents Newcastle are thought to be leading the race should Alexander Isak leave the Magpies for Arsenal.
Burkardt has been in strong form for Mainz this season, scoring 14 goals and registering three assists in 20 Bundesliga appearances. The forward was believed to be on former director of football Tim Steidten’s list of transfer targets, which is perhaps where this rumour has sprung from
How come 50 million is preposterous but 57 for Duran was offered that comment the sums don’t add up one minute we offer 57 million next minute we can’t afford 50 as I said the maths dont add up does it
Because that was a typical “we tried!” Sullivan bid.
It was highlighted as such by multiple pundits at the time. There were multiple reports of bids in the £70+m region and West Ham made £40m then £57m bids for him. It was the same crap pulled when we bid for Raphina and Kalvin Phillips at Leeds. Made “big bids” but were seen by people as clearly under their (then) market value. Just purely so it could seem like “we tried, folks!”
But with Duran, the bid that was accepted was apparently £65m with numerous add-ons taking it above £70m. So there was no chance of signing him for what we offered and Sullivan knew it. So when there’s no chance of having the bid accepted, the maths do add up because it’d cost us nothing.
Is this anymore ridiculous than rumours about David transfer?
AHH All the SNIDEn faithful